Death is the Road to Awe
by Rayatta
Summary: The cherry tree does not fear death.  It welcomes it, the road to awe, the road to eternity.


**Death is the Road to Awe**

_ The cherry tree is beautiful. It is lovely, like the moon and her children the stars. The tree does not weep in the face of death. No, the tree does not fear death. The tree is no longer afraid of dying, of what lies beyond the break between the living and the lifeless. It welcomes death. It wishes to call out to the blackness, beckon it closer, wrap it around its limbs and sing the sweetest of dirges as it is consumed by nothingness. This is a wish of a dying cherry tree, whose blossoms have withered and fallen for the last time._

Footfalls. Footfalls on the hard floor, just beyond the door. They're quick, restless. I could sense his fear, his worry, before his fingertips ever once brushed the cool surface of the doorknob. I remember sighing, perhaps preparing myself to reprimand him for his concern over me. Concern I resented. Resentment which concerned me. Consternation that, once embedded in my chest, had many a time threatened to consume me wholly, utterly, if I allowed it to sprout from its wicked seed. But the seed did grow. And It grew into something I never once anticipated.

The doorknob clicked and turned. With a quick squeak, the door swung open and there he was. At first, his expression was merely determined, but those charming features of his quickly melted, dribbled away into blatant, agonizing fear, at which point I awaited a gasp. I could see his fear wash over him like high tide washes over a shoreline in late evening, could see it stab him all over. I knew that fear well. The fear of being alone, of unsolicited solitude upon an ocean which bears only swift and punishing judgment. Yes, I was well acquainted with the loneliness he now looked in the eyes. Perhaps those eyes were mine.

When the gasp escaped his lips, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes widened. I closed my eyes. I imagined myself in his shoes, remembered my dread when the presence of this fear entered my own being. As I remembered the feeling of losing my most beloved one, I felt the impact of shoes upon the floor once more. His steps interrupted my train of thought. He was at my side then. He was shaking when clasped my left hand with both of his. I paid it no heed. I resumed my recollections unperturbed and unabated.

The sounds of his sobbing faded as my memory sought out the moments I'd locked away for so many extensive, monotonous years.

I relaxed in the knowledge that I was dying. My thoughts were at long last free to roam and play as they please. Roam they did. Roamed to the deepest recesses of my self, climbing and twirling in great spirals through the tortures, the pains… and the love. The love. When I thought of the love, I thought of _him_. How he'd been tossed to me unafraid, undisturbed by the iron bars, untroubled by the bloodlust that was profoundly obvious in my crimson-stained irises. I remembered how he, unlike his predecessors, did not shrivel into a corner or cower away from me. He did not shy away from me, the sword, the predator. In his eyes there was something different from all the others. It set him apart. Instead of glaring at him, digging my sight into his flesh like daggers, I opened my lips. I spoke. I spoke to him, the prey, and he replied, almost casually, as though he believed he wasn't nourishment, as though he knew I'd never intended to sink my incisors into the naked flesh of his throat, as though I'd never intended to consume the sweet, honey tinged fluid so imperative to his survival. He spoke to me as though he'd known me for years, and this tore apart my suspicion and unknowingly beckoned me to, dare I say, _love_ him.

Our romance was quick, it seemed, just a fleeting moment, a drop, in the basin. With him gone, it would seem that there couldn't be even the slightest of flickering lights in my world. They'd been torn out like buds are torn from boughs in the roughest of storms. Sheared away with nothing but dust and a lake of memory to remember him by. There was a starch numbness that coated my limbs and dulled my rationality. I admitted to myself that the grief of losing him was too much to bear, that it was possible that my affections had lost me everything. It infuriated me that I could be so foolish. His death, my tragedy, was my own doing upon myself. Love ceased to exist for me, then, and so, I withdrew. I withered. I allowed what small spark of emotion left in me to dominate my actions. Loathing overwhelmed me.

The numbness transformed itself into rage and loneliness. I sought an outlet for this new fury of mine. I wanted something to hate me, to scorn me for what I was and to wish death upon me every moment each day. I wanted what would grant me the sweet satisfaction of becoming an object of unwavering revulsion. I had already close myself away, tucked my desire for company into the dark. I swam in the rivers of isolation, and thrived upon the water I found there. I relished the insufferable hatred those lavender pools stabbed me with, welcomed it entirely, cradled it, nurtured it, allowed it to fold itself around my limbs so that I could retreat into the blackness. I remember the dirges, the sweet, sweet dirges I sung to those eyes as I embraced his disgust. The child believed me despicable, and his instinct was impeccably accurate. It was I, the despicable creature upon which his loathing was cast that had stolen from him what he held most dear. It was I who had robbed him, robbed him of his humanity and flung him into the most egregious of despair. It was I. Only me.

I called it repayment, vengeance, revenge, retaliation, among other things. Simply though, it was the gripping loneliness which compelled me silently to steal forth and commit such heinous felony as it was. My aloneness had compelled me forth. It had taken hold of me. All of me. It was swallowing my heart and feasting off of the tattered and maimed flesh it found there. It tore the piteous flesh apart, ravenously and contemptibly, until what remained was but a sole ostensibly insignificant fraction of what was, and what might have been.

But then there was _you_. You, with your loneliness. Your beautiful perpetuated loneliness. I recognized your loneliness as my own. You came into my world, your misery tragically akin to my own. Try as I might to prevent such an occurrence, I grew a soft attachment to you, a fragile newborn attachment that wished for nurturing, to be cradled softly in warmth of any sort. Having already discovered the results of such attachments among my kind, I sealed away my heart from you. I toyed with you. Prodded and provoked your reprimanding tone with me whilst I played among the pawns I wished to collect. I pretended to ignore your affection. I pretended to disregard your kind intentions, your single wish. Yes, I knew all along, dear, that you harbored a lovely longing for me.

He's still shaking. Still sobbing. Like a child.

_My only wish for you, child, is for you to remain as you are. I will not turn you into a vampire._

His arms were wrapped around my shoulders, supporting me as I lay there, dying. Tears streamed from his eyes in rivulets across his cheeks. His lavender eyes bore agony like a shriveling host to a parasite. This agony didn't belong to him. It was misery he should not be obliged to bear. Raising a bloodstained palm for examination, I spoke.

"It seems dying is difficult for me."

His free hand snatched mine. He rubbed the outside of it against his wet cheek.

When words escaped his lips, they were seething with the misery he beheld upon his features. They pleaded with me, begged unrelentingly. "I'll give you my blood, please don't die!" At this, I pulled away. "No. You're the only one I will not turn into a vampire." There was a warmth in my chest, in the center, where my heart had been alive not so long ago. "Besides," I continued, "it's already too late." I felt the sparks of warmth begin to make their way through my skin just as he swallowed the shock. His eyes widened, another gasp.

"No. No." He shook his head, furiously. "Shizuka-sama, I don't want this!" He buried his face into my shoulder, crying, weeping for withering blossoms and failing roots.

"Our circumstances are similar, Ichiru. We both had nowhere to go."

More sobs.

"So you really did love me."

His eyes found mine, searched for the answers I didn't have. I could see his questions in rich lavender.

"If you're afraid of being alone, shall I remain with you?"

_The cherry tree is beautiful. It is lovely, like the moon and her children the stars. The tree does not weep in the face of death. No, the tree does not fear death. The tree is no longer afraid of dying, of what lies beyond the break between the living and the lifeless. It welcomes death. It wishes to call out to the blackness, beckon it closer, wrap it around its limbs and sing the sweetest of dirges as it is consumed by nothingness. This is a wish of a dying cherry tree, whose blossoms have withered and fallen for the last time._

_The tree conquered life magnificently, became one with the greater scheme of the world; she met life upon dying, and realized the true road to grace. The path of eternity, death is the road to awe._

Thank you for reading; please review! 3

~.Rayatta.~


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